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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
I can't help comparing this to Lolita, in which case I like the Nabokov better, even though Memories of My Melancholy Whores' protagonist is more sympathetic... I guess. At least he's honest about his womanizing, but the objectification of a young girl still feels problematic, even if his intentions towards her are supposed to be pure. But the writing is gorgeous of courses, and Marquez really gets you to think about what you want out of life and its end, in 115 short pages.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The narrator is a 90-year old bachelor who has had, let's say, physical relations with a lot of prostitutes. So, when on his 90th birthday, he decides to indulge himself again in another night of frolicking with an extremely young girl, he stumbles upon a feeling which has been escaping his grasp all this time - the feeling of truly being in love. He worships her. He is fulfilled with the happiness of just being with her without even needing or desiring to gratify himself with physical acts with this girl. He even experiences jealousy, the agonies of heartbreak and the torment of being apart from this girl. The almost humorous newness and this awakening in a 90-year old man comes with the sad realization that this person has not experienced love before. He has been essentially lonely all this time despite living a seemingly normal life. He is scared to perform the physical act with this newly found treasure of love because he worries that sex may dissipate his passion, or corrupt the purity he feels towards his love. All the past times when the fulfillment of his physical desires have been devoid of love, he is afraid that by repeating the same routine of physical love, he will lose the joy and affliction of loving somebody truly.
This conflict is also intensified by the narrator's autumnal age. His mortality also affects and makes him anxious like any normal, aging person. Before finding this unexpected love, the narrator does not know what he was missing. He was comfortable in his loneliness and went to prostitutes just because that is what his body desired. He was afraid of death philosophically, existentially. But having found Delgadina - the love of his remaining life - he feels the dread of his around-the-corner, unanticipated death (he's shown to be healthy enough) more acutely. Now he has something extremely precious to lose; all the more so because he got to find and experience it so late in life. He loves Delgadina terribly and laments that he won't be there for fulfilling her life in return. This connection between the human emotions of love and death also comes out profoundly in this light, confessional text. The narrator's psyche exemplifies how the concept of mortality creates a melancholic dread of not being with and there for your loved ones. On the other hand, the way love rejuvenates the life of a lonely, old man is exactly how the pleasures, delights and even pangs of love helps enrich the default silent, numbing routine of life. It fuels the fire that is needed to coexist with the cold concept of human mortality.
I found the protagonist neither charming nor witty, which apparently were the prerequisites for excusing his obsession with a 14 year old girl forced into sex work. And she allegedly reciprocates his ‘affectations’? When they don’t have a single interaction in the book where she’s not asleep?? And she’s 14???
I’m noticing a pattern in media about the elderly learning to appreciate living again, where for elderly women they’re inspired after their husband dies but for elderly men they’re always inspired after fixating on a young woman (or girl) whom they know nothing about. I wonder if that means anything…
I’m noticing a pattern in media about the elderly learning to appreciate living again, where for elderly women they’re inspired after their husband dies but for elderly men they’re always inspired after fixating on a young woman (or girl) whom they know nothing about. I wonder if that means anything…
I feel guilty for only rating this book two stars, but it just didn't resonate with me.
Il est doux et prégnant comme souvent les Márquez. Seulement je suis mal à l'aise quand on me vend de l'amour face à une ado qui dort. Je me tâte entre trois et quatre étoiles à cause de ça. Parce qu'il est quand même bien. J'ai trouvé ça fort agréable comme lecture. Bon 4. Mais voilà, l'érotisation d'une gamine qui dort comme ça ça me met un peu mal à l'aise. Mais c'est aussi peut être aussi ça qui rend la lecture forte. Je sais juste que je le relirais pas.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
fast-paced
I was rather disappointed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores. A short story based on aging, frustration and love- it felt more like a rant of frustration. The main protagonist was not a character who made the reader feel any sympathy for the process and the book rather estranged the reader. (At least- in my case)